You looked in the mirror and you said goodbye
by SplatDragon
Summary: "It should have been you!" "You should have died instead of him!" "We should have left you to die on those streets!" He didn't know what had started the fight-Dutch had been so volatile lately, it could have been anything, really. But they'd been together for over twenty years, and the man knew just what buttons to push. Unfortunately, he managed to push him just a bit too far.
1. Put a bullet in my head and I'm gone

"It should have been you!" 

The thing about living with someone for twenty years is that they know exactly what buttons to push.

They know what to say to comfort you, how to talk you down when you're upset. Your dreams, your darkest secrets. They know, too, what to pull out in an argument, exactly what they can and can't say. What will hurt the most, but can ultimately be recovered from.

Unfortunately, they know what to say that will do the most damage, that will tear down your walls and leave you raw and vulnerable, able to be wounded by words that wouldn't have hurt half so much before. Generally, someone you've lived with for twenty years, fifteen, ten, five or even less really, will know the line, and respect it. Will never say those things no matter how angry or hurt they are.

But when they do cross that line, it hurts, hurts more than if anyone else had done it. Can push someone off their precarious perch on a ledge even they didn't know they stood on. And more often than not, they don't even mean to do it.

Rage is a horrible thing.

"You should have died instead of him!"

Arthur thought he had picked a nice spot. It was overlooking a gleaming river, and even from where he reclined he could see fish leaping into the air, their scales gleaming. The sun was beginning to rise, casting the world in various hues of gold, orange, and red. A large herd of deer drank from the river, watched over by a striking stag that, any other day, he would have pulled out his journal to draw.

As though sensing his gaze on it, the stag turned to look at him. Their eyes met—tired blue to bottomless brown—and he found himself unable to look away. He took in the stag; its branching, seemingly endless antlers. Its thick pelt, surely nicked and scarred from years of harsh living. His fingers twitched, reaching for his pencil, but finding that his satchel was not at his side.

Oh, right. He had left everything on his bed back at camp. His mare, having ridden her to the overlook bareback, had been sent away, was likely almost back at camp. Everything he held dear was safe, under the care of people who would find some use of them, treat them and treasure them as he had. He had supported his family in life, fed them and clothed them and cared for them, and he intended on continuing to do so in death, for as long as he possibly could.

His guns, left to John and Charles. Charles would use them to feed the gang, he knew, use them along with his bow to bring down animals that could fill the gang's stomachs even for a night. And John… he wanted John to get his family out. Get them safe, get them a life where they didn't have to constantly be looking over their shoulders, wondering where their next meal would come from, when they would have to pick up and move again. He wanted John to use those guns to protect them, to keep them fed as he got them somewhere safe, got a roof over their heads.

Dutch wasn't right.

He hadn't been right in a long time.

But he'd been declining sharply. In Colter he'd been the Dutch he knew: taking in Sadie without a second thought, going out into a snowstorm to make sure they all had food in their stomachs. Even insisted that he was the one to go to the door while Micah and Arthur stayed in shelter, safe while he risked being shot. That was the Dutch Arthur had known since he was a kid.

"We'd all be better off if it had been you!"

But he had changed. Was becoming wild and cruel, wasn't making much since. It had started slow—before Colter, sure, but he started getting worse in Clemens' Point, quick to anger and no longer putting up with Miss O'Shea as he used to. It was after he bashed his head, though, that he started getting bad, declining so rapidly that it was hard to recognize him.

"We should have left you on those streets!"

And Arthur cursed himself for it. He had passed it off as little more than a bump to the head. Even though Dutch, who always held himself strong, never let on that he was in pain no matter how badly he was hurting, had complained, had admitted that he couldn't see right and that his head was killing him. Yet Arthur had waved him off like Uncle, coming up to him with one of his grand ideas. "You just got a bash on the head" indeed.

"Hosea would still be alive if it wasn't for you!"

It was only after that that Dutch became nearly unrecognizable. His plans made no sense, and people took to tip-toeing around him. He started lashing out, started snarling and snapping like a cornered wolf. Rankled, and accused them of being disloyal. But he was still Dutch, and Arthur had stood by him.

"You were the one who told them, weren't you? You a Pinkerton, now?

Their raid on the bank in Saint Denis had been a bad idea from the start, even Dutch, with his mind as clouded and muggy as Bayou Nwa, could see it. But Hosea, for some reason that Arthur could never see, maybe desperation, or some sort of misguided hope, had latched onto it like a hound dog with a hide, and insisted that they do it.

"You wanted him to die, didn't you?"

And for that he'd died like a dog. Shot down in front of them, writhing on the ground in pain, not even granted a second shot to put him out of his misery. Even a cruel master would grant a hound an easy death, and yet Hosea had been left to suffer his death. Dutch may have been bending under the thousands of pounds of pressure put on his shoulders, of trying to support a gang twenty strong in a shrinking world, may have been beginning to crack, to give way, after the blow to his head,

"You told them to shoot him, didn't you? Wanted him out of the way!"

but it was the loss of his partner, his companion of well over twenty years, that made him shatter. Made his weakened mind snap, left him wild-eyed and nonsensical, desperate and lashing out at anyone and everyone. Struggling to run the gang when he no longer had someone to keep him in check, to keep him in line. Paranoid and fearful, seeing betrayal where there wasn't any, loyalty in all the wrong places.

"It should have been you!"

And Arthur would never know what had started the fight. Dutch had been so volatile lately, it could have been anything. A word taken the wrong way, even just a look. But it had quickly grown out of hand; where Arthur and, once they saw how quickly things were going south, John, Susan and Charles, had tried to defuse it, Dutch had done the opposite, trying to anger Arthur. Tried to goad him into a fight, to make him lose his temper.

"Why couldn't it have been you?!"

In the end, though, it was Dutch that had lost it. It had been years since Arthur had seen him cry, and in fact he hadn't. But there was no denying the way his face had twisted up, his brown eyes, hidden by his perpetually dilated pupils, gleamed, and the way his voice had cracked.

And he had sounded so tired, even as he turned to walk to his tent. But the sincerity in his voice had stabbed Arthur like a knife to the heart,

"Why? Why did it have to be him? Why couldn't it have been you?"

and he had felt what remained of his world crumple out from beneath his feet, feeling Dutch leave him, being as far away as Hosea despite being within arm's reach.

"It should have been you!"

"You should have died instead of him!"

"We'd all be better off if it had been you!"

"We should have left you on those streets!"

"Hosea would still be alive if it wasn't for you!"

"You wanted him to die, didn't you?"

"You told them to shoot him, didn't you? Wanted him out of the way!"

"It should have been you!"

"Why couldn't it have been you?!"

"Why? Why did it have to be him? Why couldn't it have been you?"

Arthur brought his gun up, the grip cool against his palm. As he raised it, a beam of sunlight caught the intricate engraving of a stag overlooking a mountain range, standing out in stark relief against the grain of the gun; the etching seemed to glow gold.

The barrel of the gun clicked uncomfortably against his teeth as he dropped his jaw, barely managing to fit it inside-he should have had the scope removed. But he managed, and carefully adjusted the gun, knowing just where to aim.

He was a fuck-up, a mistake that shouldn't have ever been born. But Arthur was determined to see this through right. He never could do any good, but he sure as Hell could destroy things, and he relied on that now.

Flicking off the safety, he rested his finger on the trigger.

"You have to hold steady. Breathe slowly... and always pull the trigger on empty lungs."

Hosea had told him that, and he always listened to Hosea. So he inhaled deep, appreciated the crisp air in his lungs. Appreciated the smell of the Daffodil field he had found himself drawn to. He exhaled, long and slow, trying to breathe out the trembling that rattled the gun against his teeth. Appreciated the fading yips of coyotes as they retreated to their dens for the day.

His lungs empty, he tightened his finger on the trigger, and knew no more.


	2. I didn't know 'cause you didn't say

**so apparently doesn't have strikethroughs? so I'm using bolding in its place. I am so sorry. If you want to see it with the proper formatting it's on AO3 under the name of 'You don't know what happened to the kid you raised'**

* * *

Dutch hadn't written in his journal in a long time.

He had tried in Lagras, when he'd desperately been trying to make a _plan_, been desperately trying to get them to safety. But nothing had come to him, and so the last written in pages had been back in Shady Belle, only a few jotted down lines after the Duffy boy had ridden back into camp, tied to a horse and holding his head in his hands.

Wearing all white: Stands out, Pinkertons and lawmen see him, don't shoot him?

He frowned, furrowing his brow. No, no, it hadn't been Arthur. Dutch was certain someone was dressed all in white, though, it stood out starkly in his memory. He didn't remember much these days, his memories were jumbled and unreliable, but every time he looked back on that robbery, tried to figure out what had gone wrong, the person dressed in white was consistent, was always there.

But who had it been?

Not Arthur, no, not Arthur.

**Wearing all white: Stands out, Pinkertons and lawmen see him, don't shoot him?**

He scratched out the line, scowling. His head was beginning to throb, a sharp, stabbing pain where he had bashed his head, and he shook it, trying to distract himself.

Dutch thought back on the robbery, desperately trying to recall who it had been. Not Lenny or Charles, the person's skin had not been dark enough, and Lenny had been shot dead in the end. But… maybe his memory was tricking him? The white outfit was always there, but maybe he was remembering it wrong? Maybe he was so distracted by the clothing that he was missing something so important, such a small detail?

Charles?

He jotted down. The man hadn't been with them long, and had morals that, Dutch thought, were far too good for an outlaw. Perhaps he had lost his nerve, had decided that he couldn't stand being an outlaw anymore? He had led the lawmen away from the boat, after all, and _lived_.

But the skin color… it was consistent as well. Every time he remembered it, he saw tanned skin along with the white clothing. And it stood out so starkly to him…

**Charles?**

Dutch put his head in his hands, squinting against the throbbing headache. Tanned skin… white clothing? A familiar, white hat. Where had he seen that hat? Blond hair... Blond facial hair?

Reaching for his pen, with a shaking hand, he managed in barely legible handwriting,

Micah.

Everything pointed to Micah. It was a member of his Gang, it had to be. The lawmen wore uniforms, and they had been shooting at the lawmen as well, so it couldn't be a Pinkerton. And Micah was the only one who had come with them that had blond hair, that mustache. But… but Micah?

Micah would never do that. He was the most loyal member of their family, had slotted in like he had always been there, like he was meant to be with them. He'd been with them for years months. He would never betray them, would never set them up, would never get them killed, or hurt, or arrested.

**Micah.**

Dutch had been losing time.

He'd be doing one thing, and the next thing he knew he was doing something wholly different.

Sometimes he'd lose hours, other times only minutes. He feared the moment it would happen during a firefight, though he'd been lucky enough that it had only happened when he was secluded away in camp so far.

So he wasn't too surprised when he blinked, finding himself no longer staring at his journal, instead staring at the gleam of his pocket watch as he polished it. He flicked it open, frowning—it'd been over four hours since his fight with Arthur, and his anger was long gone.

Dutch owed Arthur an apology.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. '_Shit.'_ The things he'd said to him! He and Arthur weren't seeing eye to eye anymore, but he didn't mean most of the things he'd said. Besides, the camp was surely tense after their rather public fight, and he wasn't blind enough to miss the undercurrent of tension that always seemed to be running through the gang these days. Showing that he was willing to admit that he was wrong might help, even if just a bit.

So he stood, clipping the pocket watch to his vest with rare, steady hands. That low, thrumming thread of rage was absent, and he intended to take full advantage of it. He needed to talk to Arthur, to have a heart to heart. Arthur had made some good points, but Arthur needed to apologize for some things, too, as he did.

Dutch wasn't good at apologies, never had been. He wasn't good at admitting fault, at admitting that he was wrong. So as he walked out of the tent, the few conversations of the camp going quiet, looking around to see if he could find Arthur, he was already trying to plan out what he would say, words bouncing around in his skull, sentences tangling and knotting and getting lost.

The anger flickered in the back of his mind, threatening to ignite again. If Arthur hadn't argued with him, he wouldn't have had to do this. He wouldn't have had to try and work out an apology. He wouldn't have his words failing on him.

His whole life, he had been able to rely on his words. His whole life, they were his only constant. Everything, everyone, left him. His father, his mother, Colm, back when they ran together. And now his words—he'd written them out, before, they'd never been the spontaneous speeches people thought they were, but now he couldn't even string his thoughts together long enough to put them to paper.

But no, it wasn't Arthur's fault.

He'd never been good at apologizing, and he could see this blowing up into another argument.

He wished Hosea was here—Hosea would know what to do. Hosea had always been the one to soothe ruffled feathers, to put a stop to fights, had always stopped them before they could even begin.

But Hosea wasn't there.

Would never be there again.

Because he was gone.

**And it was Arthur's Charles' Micah's his fault.**

He was well aware of eyes on him as he approached Arthur's tent, wondering if he was intending on starting another fight, if this would be it, if someone was going to be thrown out, if he would be punished in front of everyone.

But when he pushed aside the tent flap that, while once so rarely closed, was more and more often tied shut, he found the tent empty. While some of his clothes and guns and other such things sat bundled on the bed, Arthur was nowhere to be found. So he frowned, turned on his heel and walked back out, barking at John "Where the hell is Arthur!"

If he wasn't so scattered, he would have found it deeply _wrong-wrong-wrong_ that Arthur had left his journal behind—he never went _anywhere_ without it.

John looked up at him, scowling from where he'd been sitting with Abigail and Jack, but answered him still, "Dunno, he rode out after you walked off. Didn't say where he was going."

And that was enough to piss him off. Arthur left camp without telling him often, and it made him question—where was he going? Who was he seeing? He brought back funds, and food, and supplies, but still, he didn't tell him, and got testy when he asked.

So he went back to his tent or, at least, began to.

Because, scattered as he was, even he could recognize that something was wrong when he saw Arthur's beloved mare, standing amongst the other horses, while Arthur wasn't in camp.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and his blood chilled. He may have been questioning Arthur, had stopped viewing him as his son some time ago. But still he was a member of his Gang, was still a Van Der Linde, and something was deeply wrong—Arthur's horse was at their campsite, yet Arthur was not.

Before, he would have yelled for Hosea and they would have bolted for their horses and flown for Arthur. Would have grabbed Charles, too, to track him. It would have been selfless, would have been purely to make sure Arthur was safe.

This time, though, Dutch's actions were purely selfish.

The Gang, even he could see, was fracturing. Splitting into two sides. The side that was following **Micah** him, and the side that was questioning him. And what would be more reassuring than to see him ride out, going alone to look for Arthur, the man he **once** called Son, for no **spoken** reason other than to make sure he was safe?

"Micah!" he called, and the blond man strutted over, an easy grin on his lips, "I'm riding out, keep an eye on the camp."

The way the man's watery eyes bugged out was almost comical. "Riding-riding _out_? Boss, we have to plan! We don't have _time_!"

Dutch gave him a _look_, making sure to raise his voice enough to be heard without making it obvious, "Arthur's horse is here, but he is not. I want to make sure he's alright."

And he was well aware of the Gang's eyes on them, then, and fought down a grin.

Micah, though, looked fit to spit. "Boss, I'm _sure_ he's fine! He probably got another horse!"

"Micah, this isn't up for discussion." and Micah went a color of red that bordered on purple, but settled for stomping away to his two friends, he'd heard their names dozens of times but Dutch couldn't recall, and moved to tack up The Count.

"What are you doing?" he asked, seeing Charles approach.

The man frowned, looking at him as though he thought _him_ the fool, "I can help. Arthur's my friend, I can go instead."

Dutch shook his head, feeling a throb start up again, fighting the urge to snap, "Arthur is my _Son_," and the look on Charles' face had his jaw clenching, "I'll find him, go… hunt, or something."

And how far Dutch had fallen.

It was a decent ride.

He followed the mare's hoofprints, leading out of camp and then winding and ambling, seeming without a destination, although the more he rode the more he realized that Arthur, it seemed, had known where he was going. There were some spots where, it seemed, he had stopped, as though deliberating, before kicking her into a ground eating gallop that he had struggled to track, the strides too wide to easily find, and where before Dutch had planned to apologize or, at the least, talk it out, he fully intended on dressing Arthur down, asking why, exactly, he had stormed off like a child throwing a tantrum.

The dirt path turned into a deer trail, and before long he had to dismount his horse and lead The Count, peering into the grass to find where Arthur's mare had tamped it down, finding himself walking up a hill. He could hear a stream burbling nearby, and hares bolted from his path.

**It was the sort of place Hosea would have taken him to when he needed a break.**

"Arthur!"

The boy had made him track him several miles, and when he found him he was resting.

That familiar rage bubbled in his chest, boiled over, and he burned red hot, head throbbing, seeing double. "Do you know how long I've been looking for you, Son?!"

Arthur didn't respond, and though he still burned, unease set somewhere deep in his stomach. The man was lying, stretched out, on the very crest of the hill, propped up by the trunk of a fallen tree. The sun, having begun to set, silhouetted him in orange and yellow and burning gold, and as he stepped forward with a call of "Dammit, Arthur! Don't ignore me!" that was more unease than rage he caught sight of a buck, standing not far from Arthur. It raised its head from where it grazed and looked at him, blinked slow, oddly unbothered at the sight of a human so nearby. He stilled, as though locked under a spell, and then it was broken as it bounded off into the forest.

And still, Arthur didn't move, despite the stag's hooves landing next to his head.

"Arthur, don't. Ignore. Me. We need to talk." his voice dropped into that rattling growl that was becoming more and more common these days, and he hesitated, burning rage flooding away to be replaced by cold dread.

Arthur, despite how angry he was, had never been one to ignore him. In twenty years, he could never recall, once, Arthur ignoring him. Even as a teenager, first skittish with fear, then burning and angry, and then drunk and sulking and hurting, he had never, once, ignored him.

Something was _wrong_.

"Arthur, son. Look at me." and this was more plea than demand.

He realized, as he stepped forward, that not all of the silhouetting was from the sun.

A pool of red blood had soaked into the trunk of the tree, silhouetting his head like some demented sort of halo. That orange wasn't _orange_, but a burnished brown, his beloved duster he'd had since he was nineteen or so, a gift from Hosea if he was remembering right (and while he wasn't remembering things well, those things were recent, things that had happened long ago were still cement, strong and solid and _there_) soaked through with long-dried blood.

"Arthur…?"

His head… his head was _wrong_.

A horrific halo crowned a shattered head. He looked almost like he'd been scalped, and frantically he thought he'd been caught by that horrible Murfree Brood. But what he'd taken for a scalping he realized, staggering forward, was a cratering, his visible skull shattered, the edges jagged as though… as though something had shot from _inside_, and some of the sun that had crowned his head wasn't sun at all but splattered brain, and oh _god_ he couldn't breathe.

"Arthur, Arthur son this isn't funny," and how this could be a joke he didn't know, and Arthur had never been the joking sort but he hoped, he prayed, that this was some horrible, monstrous, cruel joke he was playing to get back at him, for everything that he had done, and if Arthur would just _get up_ he wouldn't even be mad, he'd just be relieved and laugh and cry and apologize, would do anything he asked if he would just _get up_, even get rid of Micah as he'd been wanting for so long if it meant that Arthur would just _get up._

But it wasn't a joke.

He staggered closer, his legs feeling so, so weak, giving out as he collapsed at **the boy's** (but he wasn't a boy any more, he hadn't been in a long time, wasn't he?) **the man's** (he wasn't just any man, though, despite how Dutch had been treating him and _how dare he_ _how dare he how dare he_ Arthur had deserved so much better why hadn't he realized before now?) his _Son's_ side, staring at his chest, so impossibly still, willing it to move, as impossible as it would be with his brains splattered across the sun soaked hill, and then he saw the gun held in his limp hand and _this was his fault_ and he couldn't deny it and someone was screaming, an awful animal keening sound and he wanted to tell them to shut up, that his son deserved peace and silence, not that _horrible_ sound, but his throat was burning and _oh_ that was him and _oh_ he couldn't stop and _oh_ he couldn't breathe and

_Arthur can't leave me too._


End file.
